


Peggy Is Always Right

by reallyireaditfortheplot



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Peggy's Funeral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 12:59:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3978949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reallyireaditfortheplot/pseuds/reallyireaditfortheplot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winter Soldier shows up to Peggy's funeral. Oddly enough, only Angie notices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peggy Is Always Right

Everyone at the funeral had seen one before. Had tasted it. Rolled it around in their mouth in an attempt to familiarize themselves with its bitterness. Some had succeeded, some failed, and the jury was still out for a few. But every soul in that graveyard could name the day Peggy Carter had changed their life.

Steve stood still. He almost always did, these days. He lacked the mirth Bucky remembered. That faith he used carry around as a sword was gone. That belief that no story ever has to end badly, that we just let them, was absent. It left a hole in its wake, one even those who only knew Captain America could see. Steve’s halo had been ridden with bullet holes.   
Is that because I am gone, or because she is? Bucky thought. The Winter Soldier said the answer was irrelevant, but Bucky; he knew it mattered, he knew that its answer was what reeled him here. Was what kept him hidden in the shadows, half behind a tree at the back, wearing a baseball hat and gloves as his only disguise. Watching, even as everyone else started to leave.

As the service began to disperse, Sharon began to help her Aunt back down to the car. She made a small smile, remembering how no one ever questioned that. Once anyone had ever actually seen the two of them together, it suddenly became quite obvious. They fit. Like puzzle pieces from two different jigsaws that still stubbornly locked together; damning what was right and proper and orderly, they made their own kind of beautiful. Aunt Angie. Steady as a rock with the laugh of a bird, Sharon had never known quite what to make of her Aunt. Either one, really. So when Nick Fury, in sunglasses on a cloudy day, took Angie’s other arm in a practiced motion, all Sharon could do was let her surprise wash away with a sigh.   
“Ms. Carter. Ms. Martinelli,” he nodded. Angie took one of those breaths that always meant she was about to deliver a monologue, prompting Sharon’s ears to perk up.   
“Hello Nick. Do you not think it’s time for you to call me Angie? I mean, I have known you since you had two eyes, a good back, and hair. You have shown up at my house bleeding, bruised, shot, and late to Christmas dinner to boot. Every time I see you your presence reminds me that the world is actively falling apart because someone is pulling out the stitches again; and don’t you tell me that every once in a while it isn’t you doing the pulling. And I have said nothing to you, because I wasn’t supposed to know in the first place, and because Peggy saw something in you, she really did, and on good days even I did too. But now Peggy isn’t here as your superior officer and I am no longer the one pretending that you two worked at the phone company. So will you please, call my niece Agent, call me Angie, and don’t turn around for the next few seconds.” They were now at the curb. All the other cars had pulled away. Angie was rather slow in her advancing years, except in tongue and wit. She ended her speech with the same tone of pleasant impatience as she began, but, ever the actress, had layered her voice with steel at the last few words and managed to convey to both Sharon and Nick that something was wrong. Ever Agents, trained by the original since they were both little more than adolescents, they stopped, listened, and moved one hand near a gun while the other shifted its grip on Angie just enough to make it easier for them to pull her to the ground or into the car if necessary.  
“Now, there are two men still out there staring at the gravesite. About twenty yards back and ten to the left of Steve, in the trees, there is a man in a black baseball hat and gloves, staring rather intently, and I must say I have never seen anyone other than Stevie stand quite that still. Nick, stop looking so flabbergasted, of course Peggy taught me a few things. I think you should turn around, call to Steve. I believe that where we are standing will also let him see the man. If he is who I think he is, everything’s about to go rather tits-up, and not in the fun way.”  
Fury looked to Sharon, who nodded, conveying her willingness to follow her Aunt’s advice and his lead in the matter. Fury managed to grunt in a way Angie knew was suppressing a grin, then turned around. “Rogers,” he shouted, “code silver, seven o’clock.”

It took The Winter Soldier to make Bucky notice what was happening. Steve was an anchor, a blinder to the rest of the noise in his mind. Staring at him was like getting lost on purpose. But The Winter Soldier, sensing the threat, snapped him out of it. His metal arm clenched as he got a flash of the pain that came from memory wiping. He always did when The Soldier got too loud. His head swiveled to see the man in the sunglasses. As he realized that he was the code silver, his arms came up in a guard, toward The Target. Clenching his real hand, he made himself say “Steve. MY Steve,” out loud. Too loud as it turned out. 

Steve turned. Code silver? How did Fury even know that that had been what he and Wilson had been using? How did Bucky get in the city, into the country, without him knowing? And why was Agent Carter just standing there with that old woman, when she should be getting her out of-  
And he heard it. My Steve. As he turned he wasn’t sure what he was wishing for. Bucky, yes, but which one? The fifteen year old with the swagger and crooked smile; the man, the brother he had fought and tried to die for; or what he had seen flash behind the eyes of The Winter Soldier. Each was one and the same, each was who he still wept for, each had taught him what love was in a way he knew could never be reciprocated. Not in the way Peggy had. The world may have changed around them but they were men of a different time. If loving Bucky was sinful Steve never wanted to be holy, but right now it almost didn’t matter. All he wanted in this moment was Bucky, in whatever iteration the universe saw fit. He needed Bucky to exist again. And so blue met blue, and all went still.

Angie thought to herself, I may be losing my eyesight but you don’t need all that much to see lightning. It was like fate had tied the two men together with red thread, but all Angie could see was two boys who had not yet confessed themselves into the light. She saw the moment break as Nick, ever the cynic, fired on the hiding man. Steve looked confused, then devastated, while the hiding man looked devastated, and then confused. She couldn’t see any more before Sharon shoved her into the car and began to drive. It was only as she noticed Sharon looking concerned that she realized she was chuckling like a madwoman. “I’m fine,” she said, “really, I’m fine, I just,” another chuckle and a smile, “Peggy was right. Those two idiots. Peggy was right.”


End file.
